The Progress of Peace

Published: January 1, 1996

Granted, the structure of peace is rickety and various cease-fires could burst apart at any moment. It must be agreed as well that wars could explode overnight in countries ostensibly at peace. Nevertheless, something wonderful happened in 1995: the year ended with fewer guns being fired and fewer people being killed as conflicts long deemed intractable yielded to diplomacy. From the Caribbean to the Balkans, from southern Africa and the Middle East to the Irish Sea, the dream of Peace on Earth has circled the globe.

For the first time in five years, Sarajevans can cross the street without fear of sniper bullets. Belfast marked a second peaceful Christmas after three decades of strife. For the first time since its birth in 1948, Israel is formally at peace with the Palestinian people, Jordan and Egypt, and talks are under way with Syria.

Weariness with unremitting tension and periodic blood baths among civilians have nudged peacemakers to the table. Also important was a yearning for material betterment, which proved a potent ally for peacemakers, especially among Arab peoples who seemed to be falling increasingly behind. In the former Yugoslavia, the need to rebuild shattered economies helped drive warring parties to the negotiating table.

Initially, the end of the cold war gave fresh life to dormant separatist movements. But once America emerged as sole superpower and Moscow ceased to be its global rival, dictators and guerrillas alike lost their old leverage and had to deal with each other, as in southern Africa.

Still, the triggering catalyst in 1995 was American leadership. The Bosnian accord was forged in Ohio, the peace talks in Northern Ireland were kept alive with help from President Clinton, and the Middle East breakthrough was in major part the result of determined American diplomatic efforts.

Mr. Clinton was initially reluctant to assume the risks of foreign policy leadership. A Somalia peacekeeping mission, launched by George Bush, blew apart. Americans were deeply divided about how to promote democracy in Haiti and peace in the former Yugoslavia. The reckoning is not yet final, but the worst fears about Washington's intervention in Haiti did not materialize.

Elsewhere in the Caribbean, El Salvador and Nicaragua remain at peace as left and right manage to compete within a still-shaky democratic framework. In Guatemala, scene of some of the worst massacres, peace talks are under way between Marxist guerrillas and the Government. Remarkably, for the first time since the early 1950's, there are no civil wars or insurgencies around the Caribbean, with the cruel exception of Colombia.

Asia is less fortunate. Against all reason, fighting continues in Afghanistan, and its capital, Kabul, is reduced to rubble. Not even a hint of compromise is evident in rebellious Kashmir, India's most unwilling state, and Tamil extremists have rebuffed overtures from a new Sri Lankan Government. Cambodia is nominally at peace, but a United Nations settlement has yet to sink roots. Turkey continues its scorched-earth drive against Kurdish rebels, and truces rather than real settlements mute conflicts in Georgia and Chechnya.

In Africa, a new President in Algeria has opened the way to peace talks with Islamic militants, and civil wars in Mozambique and Angola are yielding to pragmatic diplomacy. But in the Sudan, Africa's longest war resists mediation, and ethnic strife continues to menace Rwanda and Burundi.

The progress of peace in 1995 confirms that even the oldest, angriest conflicts are amenable to energetic diplomacy. May 1996 be as encouraging.